Redemption
by darkestboy
Summary: As Hal begins the process of detox, he finds himself seeing the faces of some old friends. Set after The War Child.


**Name:** Redemption

**Synopsis:** As Hal begins the process of detox, he finds himself seeing the faces of some old friends.

**Spoilers:** Set after _The War Child_.

"I swear if you don't get me out of these fucking restraints, I'll rip your bloody throat out!"

Hal Yorke had shouted at the ghost sitting on a stool in front of him. He had his hands curled into fists as he struggled in the chair he had been bound to but was powerless to do anything, which was a feeling he didn't like one bit. However it had been a feeling that he had become used to in a certain way, much to his displeasure.

It had been a few days since his best friend and werewolf, Tom McNair had tied him to a chair in the living room of Honolulu Heights in a bid to detox him from the recent blood he had consumed and while he understood that the werewolf's gesture had been an act of kindness, his mind felt otherwise at the moment.

"Untie me you stupid girl," Hal hissed in anger, his voice tinged with venom but the ghost in question – a young Scottish woman called Alex, whom he had been on a disastrous date that resulted in her current situation was ignoring him – a little too well. "Did you hear me?"

"I heard you perfectly well, Hal," Alex replied sharply, not giving Hal an iota of eye contact as she flicked through her magazine. Tom had gone to work at the cafe for a few hours and she had been left alone to look after the detoxing vampire. "I'm just choosing not to pay any attention to you. So you can have your little tantrum all you want."

"You think this is a tantrum?" Hal raised his eyebrows and Alex for a moment could see an evil glare in his eyes. "I've laid waste to whole cities and even then that wasn't a fraction of what I'm really like in a tantrum. Clueless, aren't you?"

"At least I'm not tied to a chair, sweating like someone at fat camp," Alex retorted as she placed her magazine down and finally gave him some eye contact. "You know this is for your own good. I'm not letting you loose. That being said, I could do with some fresh air. You really do stink, Hal."

"Fresh air? You're dead. How much fresh air do you need?" Hal raised an eyebrow as he continued to struggle with his bonds. Much to his annoyance, Tom had secured him pretty well. He was going nowhere.

"Don't know," Alex raised her eyes, pondering Hal's remark for a moment. "Might be interesting to find out."

"So, what you're just going to leave me here while Tom's -," Hal stuttered in annoyance.

"- Working a double shift on his own so that you can get better," Alex interrupted Hal, quick to put the vampire in his place. "I'll be gone for a few minutes, just to see how he's doing and maybe to scare that knob of a boss you two have. Besides, it's not like you're going anywhere, are you?"

"I swear if I wasn't tied to this chair, I'd -," Hal spat out in anger. He could feel the bloodlust rising as he began to sweat more. He didn't need his own reflection to know that he looked and smelt a state. Alex hadn't held back in reminding him of that.

"- Do what, Hal? What would you do to me that your little suck up of a friend didn't do?" Alex sounded mad for the first time as she reached for something. "I'm already dead in case you haven't forgotten. I need some fresh air and you need not to attract any disturbance."

"Alex, I'm sorry," Hal had managed to get out before he was gagged with a scarf that Alex had found under the counter of the bar. He looked at her, almost in disappointment rather than anger but his eyes betrayed him by blackening for a moment.

"It's just so we don't get any more nosy neighbours thinking you and Tom are into the old S&M," Alex said, though in her mind she did note the irony of Hal bound and gagged to a chair. "I won't be long and you need to cool off anyways."

"Alex-," Hal muffled from his gag but she had disappeared and he was left to his own devices, a prisoner in his own home. At the same time, Hal also knew it was better than the alternative were he free to do what he wanted to at the moment.

Hal didn't know how much time had passed but he had reckoned it had been more than a few minutes and as far as he could tell both Alex and Tom had not returned. He struggled more in his restraints as the smell of his own perspiration and of a bucket that had been beside his chair were beginning to grate on him. It was then he heard a familiar sounding voice.

"Oh mate, you really don't look so good," the voice of Nick Cutler murmured but the man standing in front of him was charred to a crisp, oozing red and looking absolutely disgusting.

"Cutler?" Hal muffled before his former progeny pulled the scarf out of his mouth and Hal regarded him suspiciously. "I thought you were dead."

"I am dead," Cutler said dryly. "Your little girlfriend and former flatmate kebabed me in this very room. Still don't look as bad as you do though."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Hal replied dryly. "I might be sitting in my own filth but you look awful. I take it you tried to come into the house uninvited."

"Paid the price for it," Cutler smiled and even then, Hal realised how utterly disgusting he had looked. Prior to his current look, Cutler had been a reasonably good looking young man. "A bit like what you're doing right now I suspect."

Hal remembered that some of their victims were drawn to Cutler's almost boyish innocence, prior to Cutler ripping their throats out. Hal had resorted to some incredibly underhanded tactics in order to get Cutler to realise his full potential. At the time, he believed that tricking the solicitor into drinking his own wife's blood was a good thing but now he had long realised that all he did was send Cutler down the same downward spiral he had been on. Before he had met Leo and Pearl and Emil and Catherine and Lady Mary and Sylvie and Annie and now Tom and Alex and who only knew who else in the future.

"Do you really think it's going to work?" Cutler observed as Hal kept an eye on him. "Sitting in that chair, sweating out all the blood you've consumed from her?"

"I believe, it can, I have to believe it," Hal stammered in response as he again struggled with his restraints. "Otherwise I dread the alternative."

"Dread is such a dreary word," another voice then called out and as Cutler had been to his left, Hal could now see that Mr Snow was to his right, bearing his yellowed teeth to Hal. "Did you miss me, Lord Harry?"

"Not you!" Hal really struggled as Mr Snow then grabbed Hal by his jaw and forced him to make contact. "You are dead. I saw you perish. I -,"

"- nearly perished with me as you should've done," Mr Snow said in an even tone. He didn't sound mad, but more disappointed in his progeny. "I had such great hopes for you. You would've ruled at my side had things been different. Your name etched in legends as mine should've been."

"A destroyer of many lives," Hal found himself murmuring. "I don't want that. Maybe one time I would've but not now. Things are different. Tom and Alex -,"

"- the dunce and the slut?" Cutler crassly interrupted Hal. "You really think they're worth staying off the blood for? Your standards have dropped."

"Don't you dare speak about them like that! You used to have standards, Cutler," Hal snapped back in anger. "It was something I admire about you. Do you remember?"

"Was that before or after you tricked me into drinking Rachel's blood?" Cutler smirked. "I have such a hard time remembering."

"Cutler!" Hal's voice tinged with anger and desperation but if Hal couldn't reason with Cutler in the basement of a nightclub, he knew he was unlikely to do so now.

"Your former recruited has a point though, Hal," Mr Snow whispered as he went behind the vampire and placed his hands on Hal's shoulder. "While I wouldn't use such derogatory terms for your new friends, they are not the first Trinity you've aligned yourself with to stay clean and I feel they may not be the last either. These things have a habit of coming full circle. You may see Tom and Alex as your friends but really, we're your true family. The only ones you'll ever need."

"Then I guess it's a shame that you're dead then," Hal retorted, not giving Mr Snow any eye contact but the vampire moved in front of Hal, almost forcing him to look into his eyes. "I can change. I know I can."

"I'd believe him," a tall blonde woman stepped from the kitchen, looking at Hal with mild curiosity. "I mean, I suppose I'm living proof of it in a way. Well, not so much living I guess."

Hal could've sworn he knew her but her face wasn't coming to him. He knew she wasn't one of his many victims. Hal remembered all of their faces, every single one of them and she wasn't someone he had killed.

"Who are you?" Hal stretched his neck to get a better look at the woman, the same woman who made no effort to come any closer to him. Instead she gave both Cutler and Mr Snow, both of whose eyes had blackened for a moment a wary look. "Have we met?"

"Yes, we've met," the woman said in a neutral tone. "In fact you could easily say I was born in the same place where you're sitting right now."

"Eve?" Hal said, looking at the woman. "You're who Annie met then. Is she alright?"

"You can change, Hal," Eve said coolly, folding her arms before disappearing in front of him. "Only if you want to."

"Only if I want to," Hal murmured and looked at both Cutler and Mr Snow and for the first time in a few days, he allowed a smile to creep up on his face. "I can change."

"No, you can't," Cutler said softly before disappearing. "None of us do."

"Especially ones like us, Lord Harry," Mr Snow whispered in Hal's ear, his voice cold and deadly, giving the vampire a shiver in his spine. "We never change. There's no redemption for our kind. You'll learn that lesson all over again."

"I can change!" Hal shouted but before he knew it, his former maker was no longer in the room with him. Instead his two friends were and both of them were looking really concerned.

"Hal, it's alright, mate," Tom said, removing the gag from around his neck and using it to wipe some of the sweat off the vampire's face. "You're just hallucinatin' like. No-one's ere but us. Alex an' I."

"Tom?" Hal squinted his eyes and looked to see that it was indeed both the werewolf and the ghost who were there in front of him. "What was I?"

"You were out of it," Alex interjected, stepping closer to Hal. He could still tell that she was somewhat less than happy with him from earlier on. "You thought both Tom and I were Cutler, that other guy and Eve."

"I guess it must be working then," Hal said a little dryly, looking at Alex. "The blood is beginning to leave me. Alex, about earlier, I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said to you."

"Forget it," Alex waved her hand, dismissing it as she came a little closer to Hal, standing beside Tom. "We believe you."

"Yeah, mate, of course you can change," Tom smiled at Hal. "We wouldn't be ere if it were possible."

"Yeah," Hal said, once again as he looked at both Tom and Hal and allowed himself to smile. "We wouldn't."

In that moment, Hal thought to himself that Mr Snow and Cutler were wrong. They couldn't be redeemed because neither of them wanted to but Hal knew he was different. He wanted redemption and he was going to succeed in getting it. After all, there were two people whom he had the good fortune to call his friends that depended on it. He was going to become the good man he knew he could be.

- The End -


End file.
